ST. LOUIS — We saw several big spikes in gas prices over the last week, but for the last three days, the national average according to AAA has hovered around $4.32 per gallon.
Even on a sunny day in the St. Louis metro area, many people are finding gas prices casting a cloud on their plans.
“Prices are just through the roof,” said Taneisha Buckner.
“It cost me over $20 to fill up a 5-gallon tank,” said Terry Trephon.
“Out of 32 years of my life I’ve never seen it this high,” said Buckner. “The lowest I ever saw it when I was little was $.98 or something like that.”
Missouri drivers are paying an average of $3.84 per gallon, but the price jumps to $4.56 in Illinois.
AAA Missouri spokesman Nick Chabarria said there are signs that the price at the pump may be starting to stabilize.
“Over the last couple of days over the weekend prices have held steady and really what we’re seeing right now is that oil prices globally are maybe in correction mode,” said Nick Chabarria.
However, there’s another problem on the horizon that could keep gas prices from dropping.
“Summer blend gasoline is a little bit more expensive to produce than winter blend gasoline and that contributes to a rise in prices,” said Chabarria.
The good news is that there is no shortage of gas.
“There is plenty of gasoline to go around,” said Chabarria.
However, GasBuddy petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan is concerned people are still panic buying, which is only fueling the problem.
“We are just hurting ourselves as Americans if we go out and fill up our tanks,” said Patrick De Haan.
With that in mind, we asked when people should stop at their local service station to top off the tank.
“Get it as you need it,” said Chabarria. “Don’t necessarily wait for prices to come down or for a cheaper price later in the week. At least recently, we’ve only seen prices going up.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but they need to go ahead and lower them prices,” said Buckner.
On Monday, GasBuddy reported prices in St. Louis were unchanged in the last week, averaging the same $4.06 as they did last week. GasBudy said that's about $0.78 higher than last month, and $1.24 less than last year. The most expensive gas in the area on Sunday was $4.89 while the cheapest was $3.79.
For a list of the lowest gas prices around town and tips on how to save on fuel text the word "GAS" to 314-425-5355 or click here.